Weekly Rochester Events #244: A Way To Castaways

Thursday, September 11, 2003

Once again, I gotta start with a rant. A couple weeks ago I got lunch at
The Atomic Eggplant
(75 Marshall St., formerly the City Grill.)
I got an iced tea which took 10 minutes to arrive and ordered a small chef's salad but got a large. Plus, the salad had that unfortunate flaw where the chef didn't cut up the salad into bite-sized pieces. It also arrived at the same time as the two tacos. I managed to eat one taco by hand but the other was inundated by the side dishes and had to be chopped up and eaten with a knife and fork. I hated wallowing in my food, which I felt like I was doing everytime I spread it across my face trying to shove it into my mouth. It tasted good—it's just that there was too much and the presentation and service were so bad. In the end I left a 10% tip with a note on the receipt that read, "Where were you? I ran out of water and was this a small salad like I ordered?" Even paying was an ordeal of getting the attention of the servers. It's really too bad because otherwise the food is good. Ugh.

Coming down from a rant into an ambiguity, a friend of mine said I should go see
My Morning Jacket
at
Water Street Music Hall
(204 N. Water St.)
on Saturday because they're a really cool band. Unfortunately, it's a
ClearChannel
show, and ClearChannel is among the Evil Empire of the entertainment world. They banned songs on all their stations after September 11 simply because the band name, song name, or lyrics included the word "suicide." Blatant censorship. Fuckers. Plus they make special rules for venues, so you can't leave and return ... they'll make you pay again if you want to put your coat in your car. Double fuckers.

I decided I'd do something this year to try and change the trend. I earmarked some cash for each of the events for my pick of the "most artistic" vendor. My definition of art is "expressing something that is difficult or impossible to do in words." Thus, a copper butterfly on a stick doesn't count, but an abstract painting of blue stuff that kind of reminds me of flowing water, or clouds, or thoughts does count. In the previous two "art festivals" I didn't actually find anything. For Clothesline, I found
Carrianne Hendrickson
way in the back by Prince Street. I saw her stuff last year, and decided to go over my original budget and get
Star Catcher
because I thought it was cool looking. Now there's at least one person who paid one artist for one work of art and hopefully this will drive a trend.

However, I've got constant buyer's remorse ... I don't want to say how much I spent because the actual dollar amount won't mean the same thing to everyone. I guess I can put it this way: it's about 20 times more than my "impulse limit" which is the most amount of money I'd spend without thinking about it. So like when I was in college, I wouldn't really hesitate to drop up to about $5 if I saw something I wanted, so this was like spending $100 when I was in college.

The remorse is fading, though, and I'm liking having it around. I still think it's kind of creepy ... and kind of cool. I want to ride cats around and catch stars. I wonder what the guy looks like under the mask, if that's even a mask. Or even a guy. The hat's pretty cool too. He's got a clock with compass points on it instead of numbers ... whatever that's supposed to do. From my New Math experience, I'd say it shows about East:South o'clock. I bet that's P.M. too. The cat seems kind of irritated because it's switching its tail.

I'm just afraid I'm going to get drunk one day and want to smash it or something. Hopefully not.

Creepy non tea-bearing teapot Star Catcher by Carrianne Hendrickson

MOVIES

Northfork(at
The Little)
- The town of Northfork is soon to be at the bottom of the lake that feeds a dam, and everything and everyone must go. This looks really quite good, but it's not recommended as a summer pick-me-up.
(The Little had this on their "coming soon" calendar weeks ago, and I don't know if it ran then, but it looks like that calendar is just a joke.)

Over at
Genesee Country Nature Center
(Flint Hill Rd. in Mumford)
starting around 7 p.m. is
Creatures Of Twilight.
Although this would make an okay low-fi ambient band, I believe it's about animals and such.

Ridge Road Station
(16131 Ridge Rd. (Rt. 104), Holley, NY)
will be hosting
Model Train Races
from 10 a.m. to 5. I'd hate for anyone to lose the sarcasm of "worth the trip!" (That said, check out the QuickTime VR of the train room on their website.)

Tonight at
Verb Café at Writers and Books
(740 University Ave.)
starting around 7 is the
BYOB Summer Singles Night.
Bring your own ... Booze? Beer? Duh: Books. Essentially, this is speed dating for literate people ... bring your favorite book and talk about it with everyone else in the room for a few minutes each. Call ahead for reservations.

Tonight at
Montage Grille
(50 Chestnut St.)
is
The New York Klezmer Orchestra
starting around 9 p.m. Free bowl of matzo ball soup with paid admission (really ... at least according to the e-mail from the Montage.)

The Dryden Theater
at
George Eastman House
(900 East Ave.)
will be hosting
Neil Brand
for
The Sounds of Silents
starting at 8.
Neil Brand is one of the top improvisational silent film accompanists in the world, and he'll be on hand to provide piano for clips from films such as
Pandora's Box,
South: Shackleton's Journey to the South Pole,
and a surprise movie that's a secret even to Neil.

SUNDAY

This afternoon at
Immanuel Baptist Church
(815 Park Ave.)
is
A Taste Of Park Ave.
from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Taste signature dishes from Park Ave. restaurants and benefit the Community Treasure Campaign
to support the restoration of the church.

Tonight from 8 to 10 is an
Open-Mic Comedy Night
at
Daily Perks
(389 Gregory St.)
While once it was a workshop type of environment, it's now more-or-less a regular open mic ... by default it's still a place to try out new stuff.

Link of the Week:
Akiyoshi Kitaoka's "Trick Eyes"
- I guess there's this Japanese person named Akiyoshi Kitaoka who makes these wicked optical illusions. Before you click the link, remove all eye-gouging implements out of reach.